By adamg on Thu., 2/20/2025 - 4:46 pm 
The Boston Fire Department reports firefighters responded to 151 Saratoga St. in East Boston for what turned into a three-alarm fire shortly before 5 a.m.
The department reports the fire, which spread to all three floors of the triple decker, displaced 33 people and did some damage to neighboring buildings on either side.
The cause is under investigation.
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If you are able
By Starluna
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 5:01pm
The community has set up a fundraiser to help the families displaced. If you are able, please share whatever your budget allows and share in your networks. The Social Centers is our partner on this and 100% of the funds goes to the families.
https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/adaptive-donor-form?formId=63dd0c4c-dff7-...
Thank you.
Wait a second
By robo
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 6:50pm
Three stories and 33 people?! That’s more than 10 people a floor! Even if the basement was converted, that’s more than 8 people a floor. Is that accurate?
Housing Crisis
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 7:31pm
People do this. If you have 3-4 bedrooms per floor this isn't uncommon in places where there is work to be had but little housing.
Most of these people are extended families with maybe a couple of borders. Bonus points if there are differing shifts involved.
Quite traditional, to be honest. Ask anyone who moved into any given US industrial/port city in WW II or check out the 1950 census to see how this all worked out. Some even split up the kids across floors so they could age/gender grouped by room, and people slept on the porches and in the living rooms, too. My mom, her father and mother lived with two aunt/uncle/kid combos and four of her mother's teenage siblings in her grandmother's large Victorian house near the PDX shipyards.
Don't nobody go in there...
By Friartuck
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 7:43pm
For 40-45 minutes or so...
Judging from the picture and
By dvg
Fri, 02/21/2025 - 7:29am
Judging from the picture and the fact that it was a  three-alarm fire, there is a good chance that the people in one or both adjacent buildings got displaced as well.  Hopefully not for long.
Calling Joseph Donovan sole
By anon
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 8:12pm
Calling Joseph Donovan sole manager of the limited liability company owner, EB Portfolios Holdings 2021 LLC.. Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Is 151 the correct address?
By anon
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 8:53pm
Is 151 the correct address?
Google maps shows this large brick building as 151 Saratoga
https://maps.app.goo.gl/f4myvQYbAGsyLuvbA
Hmm ...
By adamg
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 9:22pm
BFD said 151, and so did several folks who listen to BFD scanner traffic, but you're right: What you see on Google Maps is most definitely not the triple decker that BFD's photos show burning. Now to try to find out for sure.
That is the front of the same building
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 9:39pm
Note the exact location by zooming into the parcel-level on the map at the top of this page. Those are row houses:Â they are not one large brick building - they are a series of individual buildings with no spacing.
The BFD photo is taken from the back. That view is visible in this satellite overhead shot.Â
This also solves the mystery of how 33 people lived there. The rowhouses built into the spacious back lots, probably at least six units in each of them.
Yep!
By adamg
Thu, 02/20/2025 - 11:53pm
Further confirmation comes in this photo of a deputy chief the brick buildings.
I wonder if they originally
By Don't Panic
Fri, 02/21/2025 - 2:32am
I wonder if they originally had like 3 apartments because being so close to the rivers to the harbor they were intended for dockworkers and their families then converted to 6 apartments during the housing boom of the 1980s?
My Grandma's 3 floor brownstone in Roxbury was part of a row of houses but it was laid out inside like a single family house.
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